Chad was lost in thought, scanning through the AM band and driving like a bat out of hell, when he rounded a bend outside Laramie, Wyoming. As the corner opened up, something in the middle of the road flashed onto his NVGs. Chad slammed on the brakes and skidded to the outside of the curve, ass-first. He felt the Jeep clip the obstacle and then slide off the road, bouncing over the brush until the vehicle lurched to a stop.
He jumped out of the Jeep with his 1911 at the ready and scrambled up the embankment. In the middle of the gravel road, a boy lay curled up and moaning. Chad didn’t immediately move to assist, running down the road first, then crossing far below the injured boy. Once he was confident he hadn’t fallen into a trap, Chad approached, still ready for a surprise gunfight.
The boy looked fuzzy in the NVGs since Chad hadn’t focused them down yet. He had to stay ready, so he was caught in a pickle between checking the boy for weapons and readying himself for an ambush from the shadows. After a second, he turned the knob, caught a quick visual of the boy and returned the NVGs to an infinite focus. The boy had nothing on him resembling a gun and there was no obvious trauma.
“You okay, kid?” Chad scanned the horizon for threats.
“Yes. I think maybe,” the boy said with a Hispanic accent.
“What’re you doing in the middle of the road?”
“I walk to Evanston where my family lives.”
“The hell you are,” Chad replied with a laugh. “That’s three hundred miles from here.”
“I go to Evanston.”
“Okay,” Chad relented. “Come with me to my Jeep. I don’t want to check you in the middle of the road. Can you walk?”
“I think I can walk.” Chad helped the boy up and they hobbled over to his Jeep.
The boy wasn’t screaming in pain. He probably wouldn’t need medical attention, as though there was such a thing as “medical attention” anymore.
“What’s happening out there?” Audrey asked as they approached.
“I sort of hit someone on the road.”
Chad had pulled all the fuses from the dome lights, so Audrey had to wait in the dark. “You either hit someone or you didn’t. Are they okay?”
“I think so. What’s your name?”
“My name is Pacheco.”
Chad focused down his NVG and fired up the IR illuminator, like an invisible flashlight on his NVGs. “Where are you hurt?”
“My leg is hurt.” Pacheco unbuckled his pants and stepped around to the front fender where the lady couldn’t see him. Chad followed. Pacheco pulled his pants down. There was a scrape and one hell of a bruise forming, but there didn’t seem to be any major damage.
“Anywhere else?” Chad asked.
“No, just my leg hurt.” Pacheco touched his leg and winced.
“Well, stop poking it.” Chad laughed, shaking off the anxiety. “You want a ride to Evanston?”
“A ride? Yes.” Pacheco nodded. Now that he could see him better, Chad figured the boy was older than he’d initially figured, more like a young man.
“How old are you?” Chad asked out of curiosity.
“I’m eighteen years old.”
“And what are you doing way out here, walking in the night?”
Pacheco gave him a quizzical look.
“I mean, why are you so far from your family?”
“I work as cowboy… vaquero. I work on the cows.”
“Right on, Pacheco. Hop in the back.” Chad tilted his seat forward and motioned for Pacheco to get in.
Chad stole a glance at Audrey in the passenger seat. If she had an opinion about their new travel companion, she wasn’t saying.
“Amigo,” Chad leaned in toward the boy, “can I look through your bag?” He pantomimed taking Pacheco’s pack and pawing through it.
“Okay.” Pacheco handed him the backpack.
Chad found a little water, a small pocketknife, some food wrapped in tinfoil and personal papers: a birth certificate from Honduras, a state-issued ID card from Wyoming, some pay stubs and some letters. Chad palmed the pocketknife and slipped it into his own pocket.
“No guns?” Chad asked, making the universal symbol for gun with his thumb and finger.
“No. No guns.” Pacheco shook his head.
“Okay, then. Good. Let’s hit the road.” Chad hopped in and steered the Jeep in and around a clump of bushes and bounded back up onto the highway.
They drove for a while, maintaining almost forty miles an hour blacked out. Chad made a few educated guesses with the map, which turned into major mistakes. By the time Chad admitted to himself he had taken them down the wrong road, they had gone twenty-five miles in the opposite direction.
“Damnit!” Chad cursed as he sat alongside the road, trying to bend the map into giving him a different answer. Apparently, he had headed north almost to the town of Lookout, which put him a long-ass way from where he wanted to be.
Getting lost is a lot more frustrating when gas is scarce, Chad realized.
“Screw it.” Chad did a messy U-turn and headed back. From here on out, he was going to stay on the interstate. Maybe it wouldn’t be so damned confusing.
“Son of a bitch!” Chad swore for the twentieth time that night. Dawn approached and he had propped his NVGs up and out of the way on his Team Wendy helmet. Instead, he peered through his father-in-law’s binoculars. A mile ahead, a roadblock crossed both sides of the interstate.
Apparently, the enterprising men of Elk Mountain, Wyoming were stopping cars and collecting tolls. Elk Mountain sat a good mile off the interstate, so this roadblock wasn’t designed to protect the town. This was post-Apocalypse capitalism in action.
The roadblock spanned both sides of the bridge over the Medicine Bow River. It had been strategically located so nobody could drive around it. The map showed no side roads circumventing the blockade, which made sense since the Medicine Bow River was seventy yards wide and necessitated a serious bridge.
The problem with toll booths these days, Chad reminded himself, is you don’t know if they’ll collect a dollar or collect your life.
Chad drove a couple of miles away from the roadblock, backtracking on the interstate, looking for a place to bed down for the morning. They got off the blacktop and ran dirt roads along the river until they found a remote hidey-hole where Chad could sleep.
Too exhausted to think about the roadblock, he closed his eyes and his head lolled against the cold of the driver’s side window. His sleep-addled mind pecked at the problem of the roadblock. What he needed was another SEAL. With two operators, he could have some fun with that roadblock. The delirium of sleep began to carry him away and his mind broke free.
Maybe I could make another SEAL, he confabulated as he slipped away, slumped over in his seat.
“Buenos dias.” Pacheco’s face peered in through the driver’s side window.
Audrey and Sam were already outside, playing by the river.
Chad opened the door and rolled out of the Jeep, his legs stiff. “Buenos dias, amigo.”
Chad was one of those guys who thought every idea that crossed his mind popped into his head God-dappled and inspired. He returned to his nighttime bout of inspiration like a retriever going for his tennis ball.
“Pacheco, you want to become a Navy SEAL?” Chad didn’t talk much but, when he did, he liked to amuse himself.
Pacheco raised his eyebrows, understanding the words but not the meaning.